An Old StarHound's Ghost Story: Cannonball's Tale
by Master Fwiffo
Summary: Pirates of the Iacon Skies 03  Cannonball tells of the days of Hooligan, and his mysterious fate...Special for Talk Like a Pirate Day


TFPirates

Cannonballs Tale

Copyright 2007, masterfwiffo. All rights reserved.

Arr. This is good Energon. Bartender, another mug!

You know, life really ain't bad for a Pirate these days. Sure you got Cons and Bots and Quints and Unicron-Knows-What-Else on your tail, but usually, they all be a bit too busy beating each other up to be bothering us. And with war comes profit. And with profit, comes excess Energon. Getting your hands on some Denebian Energon, mm-mm-mm, lemme tell you, there ain't no better way in the universe to refill.

I've been piloting the Sword of the Fallen for, oh, 50, maybe 60 Deca-Cycles now. Been the time of my life really. I'm one of the old guard. Yep, that's right, I'm the only person still on the ship that was there before Mirage.

I came in under Hooligan- who's Hooligan? What? You mean to tell me, you've never heard of Hooligan, the greatest Pirate that ever sailed the spaceways? Well slag me sideways and sit down, friend. I've got a story for you!

You see, Hooligan was the original Star Pirate. He's had many immi- immita-, err, wannabee's after him, including my current Captain, Mirage, but none were as great as he. He made the legend of the Sword of the Fallen what it is today, though not many remember his glory days.

He was among the first Cybertronians to leave the planet, and unlike the others, all his thoughts were for his own gain. He hijacked one of the first Cybetronian research ships and fled into the Quintesson sector, where he made himself scarce for several years. He began recruiting anyone he could find - Cybertronians, couple Quints, even a Lithonian, 'till he had a crew.

But he still needed a ship. So he stole one.

But ya see, Hooligan wouldn't settle for any-old starship, nope. Using the Quints he had hired as insiders, he snuck onto Quintessa itself, right into the military district. Aw man, you shoulda seen the look on the Quint Emperor's face when he saw his prized new warship pulling out of the dock a month early. It was the talk of the entire quadrant after that one! And between you and me, I'd say that was the reason the Quints declared war on Cybertron in the first place, wounded pride.

Well, after that, Hooligan went into hiding again. You see, he was smart. He had to wait for the whole slagging thing to blow over before he could start his campaign. He did a few small hit and runs, mostly for survival, but also for weaponry. He was arming his ship, making it bigger and better, and preparing it for its great tasks.

I don't actually know when the ship was christened, but I know that Hooligan did a lot of research beforehand. He dug up an old legend from Cybertron's old ages about some kind of demon-guy mean as Unicron himself. For a while, he even tried to get others to call him the Fallen, but it wouldn't stick. 'Twas a stupid name anyway. But it worked for the ship! My, she's seen more battles than any other ship in the system...

But I digress. I'm starting to wander, and I can tell you're getting bored with my reminiscing. So sit back down and I'll continue. Bartender!

Anyway, Hooligan started his reign near the end of the Quintesson wars. The first outpost he ever hit was somewhere out in the boondocks of Cybertron's territories - colony Omnicron, I think. They never knew what hit 'em. By the Pit, they still talk about that raid today. I hear it was a glorious fight, the crimson of the flames against Hooligan's shadowy figure as he cleaned out the Energon stores dry. It must have been amazing. Hooligan made off with enough Energon to last a small army for years, but no, it wasn't done yet.

After colony Omnicron, the Legend of Hooligan grew. He began hitting other territories - Quintesson, Cybertronian, it didn't matter. He gathered more energy then any 'bot would ever need. And then after he decided he had enough energy, he turned to other valuables. Latinum, Mithril, Ocatardon Crystals, works of art, whatever suited his interest. It's safe to say that he was the single richest being in the galaxy for a long, long time.

It was during his glory days that I first met him. It was just after the Autobot and Decepticon war began. I was a Decepticon stationed on Ellis III, one of the first places we 'Cons hit. Course, I didn't particularly care for Gigatron, but I liked him more than the Autobots. It was slaggin work. Nobody really liked it. The 'Bots abandoned the place first chance they got, and it was just us, doing nothing, all the time. Boring.

But then Hooligan showed up. Granted, the first thing he did was blast the living slag out of us and demand unconditional surrender. But then he gave some of us an offer to let them join his crew. Everyone else on that Primus-forsaken station was a moron and refused. But I saw Hooligan, I saw his ship, and I knew, this was the place for me.

The next few Deca-Cycles are a blur in my mind. Hooligan and his crew showed me the ropes, and as we went, they honed my fighting skills. I started as the cabin mechlet and worked my way up, and for a time, I was Hooligan's favorite student. The universe trembled before us, and we all became filthy slaggin rich.

I'll admit now that it was then that I began my love affair with the ship. Spending all that time cleaning it, I just took a liking toward the Sword, and I would spend hours admiring it from all angles. Even today, in her older age, she is still a work of art. Hooligan ran a tight ship, and we all kept her pretty. She was the symbol of the golden age of space piracy.

But then Hooligan disappeared. No one knows where he went, or why. He ditched the entire crew on an asteroid, and left us there, saying he would return shortly. We watched in shock as the Sword of the Fallen turned from the station without us, all its treasure still within its burgeoning hulls, and disappeared into hyperspace. And so we stayed. And we waited.

We waited for ages, and there was no sign of him. Mega-kilicks turned to cycles, then the cycles into a mega-cycle. Several of the crew gave up and moved on, but I waited. I waited because I had nowhere else to go. The Autobots would never take me, and both the Quints and the Decepticons had a death warrant on my head. So I waited, and waited, my optics always on the horizon, waiting for a glimpse of the magnificent ship that had carried me for so long.

For a deca-cylce I waited, hoping that he would return. But alas... There was no sign of him. Hooligan was gone, it seemed, forever.

So with a sigh and regret, I moved on. I went out into the universe, along with another of Hooligan's crew, a friend named Vanquish (Primus rest his spark). Together we moved from station to station and planet to planet, doing odd jobs where we could. The golden age of Piracy seemed to have ended, and we were victims of its passing. Vanquish and I scratched out a living as long as we could, but ended up in the gutters. It was a time of darkness for us. It seemed our glory days were over.

But then we began to hear whispers. Stories, told under hushed breath. Stories of a Pirate so heinous and evil, leaving hundreds dead in his wake, slaughtering entire colonies for the barest of treasure. It couldn't have been Hooligan. It was not his style.

But one night, the colony Vanquish and I had found ourselves stranded on fell under attack. We rushed to defend ourselves from the sole nightmarish attacker, and to our shock, found Hooligan instead.

He seemed like a nightmare, a twisted and monsterous version of his former self, a rage-fueled tornado of destruction. He almost killed us in his attack, but as we defended ourselves, crying out, praying for a hint of recognition, he seemed to stall and reconsider. Then, suddenly, his entire demeanor changed, as if the demonic form melted away before our very optics. The Hooligan we knew returned, and welcomed us with open arms.

He took us to his ship berthed nearby and to my delight, we found the Sword of the Fallen in better condition than it had ever been before. Its weapons gleamed and it seemed to have a new paint of gold. Seeing it born again as if for the first time, oh it was a beautiful sight.

But we entered a ghost ship. It was as if Hooligan was crewing the entire ship by himself! When we asked him about it, he refused to answer any questions, instead opting to assign us to various positions. Vanquish took the engines - and I took the helm.

As soon as my hand laid upon that wheel, I knew I was home again. Primus damn whatever Hooligan had been messing with, I was home! From the day forth, the Sword of the Fallen was mine to steer under my Captain's orders.

Hooligan, Vanquish and I set out again. We found ourselves some of the old crew, and collected some new recruits - notably among them a young Decepticon named Mirage, and a Quintesson outcast who had no name - so we all just called him for the creatures who he most resembled - Sharkticon.

But the fire seemed to have gone out of Hooligan's spark. While during a battle he was more bloodthirsty and ruthless than ever before, in between fights, it seemed that all his charisma had been sapped from him. All his knowledge and intelligence, pulled dry, leaving an empty, almost soulless husk. It seemed now that the only time he could ever shine and be himself was in the midst of combat. Stranger still, no amount of prodding or questioning would get him to reveal where he had been for all those deca-cycles. Also absent were any signs of the treasure he had accumulated all those ages ago.

As time went on, and our raids became less frequent due to increased Quintesson military presence, and Hooligan began to waste away. I literally saw Hooligan fade and dull in front of my eyes, like he was being pulled slowly away from our existence. We sought the help of medics and doctors throughout the galaxy, but none could help him. He would thrash about during his rest cycles, crying out strange words in a language none could comprehend, and remember nothing of it in the early mega-klicks.

Then one fateful Cycle, one I shall never forget, we began the early watch to find Hooligan gone. We searched the ship frantically, overturning every nook and exploring every cranny in a desperate bid to find him. But no matter where we looked, we could find nothing of him. Not a trace. Hooligan, the feared Pirate of the skyways, had vanished.

Some say he leapt out of an airlock due to some strange depression. Others say he fled the ship, returning to his long lost treasure horde. But me, I'm not so sure. That very day the bright gold that had graced the Sword of the Fallen began to fade to a dullish bronze. Mirage has insisted that it was always that color, but I know better. That goldish tint, and Hooligan returning after so many years, the missing treasure... I think he still wanted to be the Fallen. And he found a way to make himself closer to it. But whatever dark power Hooligan found, it didn't last him forever. And that's why he's gone now.

After that, the crew seemed to drift apart. We made a half-hearted attempt to find Hooligan's missing horde, but no sign could be found. And after that failure, we all but disbanded. All of the old guard besides me and Vanquish left, and many of our newer crew left as well. It seemed Hooligan's legacy was gone forever.

But to our surprise, it was quiet young Mirage that saved his legacy from oblivion. He stepped up, and with authority I'd not seen since I first met Hooligan all those cycles ago, took command of the Sword of the Fallen. Now, he and Sharkticon run the ship.

Don't get me wrong, Mirage is no Hooligan. But he doesn't try to be, and I respect that. His tactics and fierceness make him almost like the Hooligan of our day. But sometimes I look at our current crew - that lunatic Repugnus, that entirely-too-soft Wheeljack, that beast Doomlock, those dumb Minicons, and ugh, Thunderblast. Don't get me started on Thunderblast. I look at them, and I am always saddened. This ragtag group... we are pirates? We bear the same flag that caused the universe to tremble all those cycles ago? These aren't the glory days I remember. I want them to come back, but they can't. Vanquish was the last link I had to those days, and he's gone now. I do miss it.

I'm prattling on now, and I can tell you're losing interest. But before you go off, let me leave you with this.

They say that we old star-hounds are superstitious. And we are. Largely, we are. But I tell you now, Hooligan is still around. His memory haunts our ship. I can hear his voice at night. Maybe he's trying to warn us of what he found. Or maybe he's telling us where his missing treasure is. Our maybe he's howling from the depths of Unicron's maw, and all we hear are his screams of torment. But no, he's still alive. Somewhere, out there, in the universe, his spark's still around. Not alive, like us, but out there... in the Universe... Hooligan his watching. Maybe he'll come back again, and bring back the glory days with him. The days when he, Hooligan, ruled the skyways, and I served under him, onboard the fiercest Pirate ship the world has ever seen...

But I'm just an old star-hound. What do I know? Now leave me to my drink. Bartender! This mug's only half full!

Arrrrrr...

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End file.
